FlashInThePan

I'm hopeful on Harmes but still in 'wait and see' mode. There has not been a big enough body of evidence to say whether he is the real deal or not. If he can continue on from where he left off last season then awesome. I'm just a little worried that he will be another Hunt or Kent, showing us blocks of great stuff and then not following up...

I'll be in again. Team name: Demonators

If you believe the PR, dropping Fritsch was about height and matchups. WC were playing 3 talls. I really like the idea of Fritsch, KK and Salem rotating the HB sweeper / wing positions.

Why 2020? This is the 2nd or 3rd time I've seen someone sign off like this. Are we skipping 2019 because it is an odd numbered year?

They are not ranking the defenders we had all year. Lever was injured most of the year and May was at the gold coast. They are ranking our best fully fit defense we would have in 2019.

I can totally see Hunt on a wing if he is playing at his best. I don’t know what happened to him last year, maybe drank too much of his own bath water in 2017? He just never looked like cementing a spot in 2018 even with Lever out and a huge hole in our defence. At his best he can mark, run seriously fast, prop and kick it a mile. He can clearly finish well in front of goal also. He is never going to be an inside mid but we don’t need him to be. As a winger he could really be something if he just settles down, does the work and starts lowering his eyes. I really hope he does.

It seems like people always need something to worry about. If forward depth is that thing for you, then ok. Personally I think our list is about as balanced as I have ever seen. Given our game style and the fact that a high proportion of injuries happen in the midfield, stacking for contested midfield depth seems only sensible. As others have noted Gawn can now rest forward. This is massive for us, he was a leading intercept marker last year when Lever was injured and he dropped back into the hole, he will bring that to our forward line. Preuss is literally massive, it will take a pretty big defenders to curb him if he plays forward. I think people also underestimate Tim Smith, he doesn’t always take the mark but he is as fierce competitor and will generally halve the contest even if he doesn’t take it. If we have injuries and need to play him forward then we just need to ensure that we have crumbers there at the contest. Also as people have noted, many of our backs can swing, including May who has done that role fairly well for GC. We have a fleet of medium forwards who can play tall including Vanders, Petracca and even Hannah to an extent. All of that being said, history shows that staying injury free with a stable team structure is a strong factor in success.

He is not in that list but I think Nathan Freeman would be worth taking a look at. He promised a lot but injury kept him from delivering at both Collingwood and Saints. He was touted as super fast in his draft year. I guess if he couldn’t get a game at the Saints that is a bad sign though.

I am surprised by how many people have port in the top 8 next year. I am predicting a disastrous season for them. They placed ninth this year and just lost polec and wingard. North is the other surprising team many have named in the 8. They won't get the free ride in the draw they got this year and I just don't see their list as that good. Not as sure about this as port but they just don't look like contenders to me.

I have no idea about the truth of it, just that it is a terrible piece of so called journalism and has no view other than what Freo say is behind their ‘due dilligence’ comments. It is also logically inconsistent.

It’s hard to know where to begin. Firstly it is not a description off the trade taken from multiple angles, it is a press statement from Fremantle siting only their view of why they are behaving like idiots. Next it does not logically hold water, as others have mentioned, how did the deal get to club to club negotiations without them having an in principal agreement on the contract. That just doesn’t happen these days, before tings even progress to the club that holds the player the purchasing club and player have a deal in place. Next: The substance of the article is that Jesse’s contract length is the killer what could Melbourne buckling doabout that? The whole article is just a PR statement from Freo. I am not saying that the journalist is biased, just lazy and more like a PR agent than a journo

Hahaha, 283 pages of angst... net result? Nothing to see here

No, nothing, no

Based on the stats quoted in an earlier post this is not a massive turnover, it is about middle of the road. A big part of this is a cull of several players who never played and were just taking up space, from a list management perspective. AVB and Tyson are different and will be traded for picks or another player. What interests me is what the FD are thinking. I am certain none of this is a surprise, it is quite intentional. There is a very concrete plan for 'balancing our list' as Mahoney put it in his interview. Obviously KK and Preuss are part of it, I'm not hearing anything else except the May rumours, which I can only assume rely on a Hogan trade. Surely there is something in the works for a running midfielder of the likes of Gaff and Dalhaus who are clearly sent getting.

Okay, okay... GENERALLY they don't recruit ball butchers

I must be in the minority then. He is steady and solid, a great leader and heart and soul of this group. He brings 100% each game and has probably the least variance between best and worst games of anyone on our team. This is the kind of rubbish thinking that got Junior pushed out of the club. We could see the results of that shallow thinking play out for years.

Hawthorn don't recruit players who kick like Tyson does

I put Brayshaw's number 10 on my jumper after his first year and I always thought he was just a clean run away from some special footy. He is a clean mover with excellent footy sense. I was surprised and pleased when Hunt produced what he did the season before last. Even during that season he still looked very one dimensional. I'm not going to write him off just yet though. I too thought Harmes didn't have enough in his bag of tricks and I am happy to be proven wrong on that one. Maybe with some Macca magic Hunt can produce a season like Harmes did this year.

This This thread has multiple parts. It started with speculation based on something Boomer Harvey of all people said on SEN. Now we are discussing what sounds like the inevitable loss of a young key forward with mountains of potential. Seems like many are trying to equate one discussion with the other.

By my count we have: Delisted 4 - Bugg, McKenna, King and Pedo as well as 1 rookie - Filopovic 2 have retired - Vince and Balic Kent has asked for a trade to StKilda. Hogan may be requesting a trade to Freo That amounts to up to 8 spots plus a rookie spot, 7 are a certainty. That seems like a lot of space being freed up for a club with no first round pick and probably only 3 selections worth anything at all. I know from past form that Jason, Todd and the crew always have a plan, I wonder what it is. Any inside knowledge on Demonland?

Um, I think there is more to this than we would like to think. https://www.sen.com.au/news/2018/09/25/report-hogan-declares-he-is-open-to-fremantle-trade/

I'm sorry but stretch looks like a deer caught in the headlights when he gets the ball. Time and again he looks good at VFL and then fails miserably at AFL. I can't see the point in sinking more time into him.

Gaff is a power runner. Like ANB but with more experience and class. These kinds of players are increasingly valuable as powerful 2 way running is what allows us to cover structural gaps when there is a turnover. It also allows us to run in waves when we cause a turnover. I get pretty excited when I think of a team containing Tmac, Hogan, ANB and Gaff. I wouldn't sell the farm to recruit him as I think we're are growing something pretty special and we're need to look at the salary balance but i would have a red hot go

Ummm, you must have missed the game a couple of Saturdays ago? I don’t think it was pretend, looked like the actual grand final to me... Just saying

Brayshaw is going to be a gun. Trading him would be insane. Why this forum needs to descend into cannibalizing our own list constantly is completely beyond me.